The Christmas Pudding Incident, Retold
by lunalunettebeans
Summary: Remus and Sirius are left to babysit a five-year-old Harry when Lily and James have a night out. This involves bedtime stories and wrestling. And apparently green hair? It's better than it sounds, I swear. Summaries are just not my forte. T for swearing.


A/N This is my first fic, so reviews are much appreciated. Cheers to Trublumoon for being such an excellent beta, even though I had to threaten ~cough, beg, cough~ her to proofread it. This one's for you.

 **The Christmas Pudding Incident, Retold**

"Are you quite sure that this story is all right for five-year-olds?"

Remus Lupin threw his arms into the air in exasperation, saying, " _Oliver Twist_ is a classic, Sirius! Of course it's 'all right' for a five year old! Isn't that right, Harry?"

The five year old in question rubbed at his eyes with his hands and yawned, "I'm bored, Moony. I wanna funny story. Not one like the one from yesterday, with the bird an' the statue an' the eyes. That was sad."

Sirius raised an eyebrow at Remus, who looked away, "I told you he wouldn't like _The Happy Prince_."

Remus sighed, "You know, Lily's mum read her all manner of classics when she was little. Can you blame me if I hoped he'd inherited her love of learning?"

Sirius grinned, "Well, Prongslet here isn't as swotty as you or our beloved Lily-kins. He takes after James, and a good thing too. We've enough," He sniffed dramatically, making Harry giggle and Remus sigh, "Book-snoggers in the family."

Remus smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Book-snoggers, really? Lily snogs James, whom we all know would resort to book-burning if he even suspected Lily of cheating on him with one, and you know perfectly well who I snog," At this, Sirius turned a rather fetching shade of magenta, but Remus wasn't done yet, "And you can hardly talk yourself, you know. Am I speaking to the same Padfoot who spent three years learning how to become an animagus, which required all manner of obscure and thick books? Or the one that spent hours on end in the library helping me research spells for our pranks? Or even looked through unspeakably archaic books for instructions for potions for the Marauder's Map?"

Sirius pouted, more for Harry's viewing pleasure than anything else.

"At least I didn't read for the sake of reading! I did the animagus transformation for you, you ungrateful bas…" he trailed off as Remus stared pointedly at Harry, covering his not-so-very-G-rated statement with a hesitant 'basket case?' before moving on, adding, "and the other two were for the sake of future fun, so that cancels out any swotty intentions."

Remus rolled his eyes, smiling, "Keep telling yourself that. Though I do see you doing the crossword every morning while you drink your tea, you know."

Sirius was about to retort- what? He was!- when he noticed that Harry was no longer paying attention to the banter- cough, flirting, cough- that always occurred when he and Remus were in the same room. James had once commented that it was better than 'pillow talk', and for his efforts had received two rather strong stinging hexes and a 'Jealousy doesn't suit you, Potter,' for his efforts. Harry looked as though he was going to start kicking, or at the very least yelling his lungs out- a trait he'd inherited from Lily- if he didn't get his story and get it fast, so the trip down memory lane was pocketed for another day.

"So, Harry," Sirius asked, "What story would you like to hear, if not one of Moony's novels?"

Harry pulled a 'thinking face,' jutting out his lower lip and furrowing his eyebrows, resting his chin on his hand. Remus made a mental note to never let Sirius and Harry spend time alone again. One insufferably adorable drama-addicted prat was quite enough for him, ta very much.

After some apparent deep though, Harry asked, "Can I hear the one with the Chris'mas pudding?"

Sirius put up a mock fight, arguing, " But you've heard that one so many times already! Wouldn't you like to hear something different? Like how Prongs and Lily-flower finally got together? (There's a violent story) Or even how Moony and I got together? That was interesting. Once upon a time…"

It was funny, really, to see how flustered Remus got when the trial and error- Oh, the errors. Oh, the many, many, many errors- of their early relationship was brought up. Honestly, at this point, Sirius just did it to see him blush.

"And that's quite enough of that! Um, let's do the Christmas pudding one! Who doesn't like the Christmas pudding one!"

Remus said all of this with a note of panic in his voice, and Sirius held back a smile as he conceded, "Fine. Wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable."

Remus scoffed.

Harry squinted at them both through his circular glasses and crossed his arms, which looked an even mixture of ridiculous and adorable, as he wore one of James' old second year chaser jerseys to bed, and it covered his arms completely, what with being about five sizes too big.

"I love the Chris'mas pudding one! Please?" He stretched the word out, as small children are wont to do.

Remus smiled, and with no further ado, began the story, "Once upon a time, not very long ago, in a land only a train ride away, there were two black haired-"

"-And very handsome," Sirius interrupted.

"-boys who were carrying at least two hundred servings of Christmas pudding in two gigantic wheelbarrows that had been made to fly in front of them, weightless."

"How come they didn't get caught?" asked Harry, as he always did at this part of the story, eagerly awaiting the response.

Sirius winked, "Magic"

Despite what Lily thought of them, Remus and Sirius were responsible enough not to let slip to Harry the secret of the invisibility cloak. That was James' job, when Harry turned eleven and was to go to Hogwarts.

Remus smirked, "And copious amounts of luck. Now, as they were two very silly and not very observant teenage boys, they had neither cast a shrinking charm on the rather large piles of pudding, nor had they listened for footsteps sneaking up on them as they tried and failed to shove the puddings into a very cramped broom closet on the fifth floor."

"Why was the broom closet cramped?"

It was another one of Harry's questions. Whenever they told this story to him, without fail, he would ask the same things every time. It was more than a little endearing.

"Well, Harry," said Sirius, "It was filled with (most surprising thing, really) brooms!"

Harry giggled and motioned for Remus to continue.

Remus feigned confusion, and asked Sirius, "Where was I?"

"At the bit where you go all dramatic about footsteps and our idiocy and all that tosh," he supplied, smiling.

"Ta. Now of course, these two boys didn't notice the footsteps until it was far too late. Another boy-"

"A really strapping lad, with amber eyes and a really lovely-"

Remus raised his eyebrows.

"I'll thank you for not interrupting; I'll lose my place. Another boy crept up behind them, pausing only inches from their struggling forms as they tried-and failed-to shove at least a hundred servings worth of Christmas pudding into a broom closet already bursting with, well, brooms. Rolling his eyes, the boy put a hand on the backs of each of their necks and said, simply, 'boo'. Never were more high-pitched shrieks of 'We didn't do it!'ever heard in the history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Sirius scowled, and tried to preserve his remaining shreds of dignity by saying,

"Manly shrieks!"

This, of course, did nothing to stop Harry clutching at his stomach and laughing as he did without fail every time the story reached this point. It appeared some jokes never got old.

Remus rolled his eyes, "Yes, I'm sure. Manly shrieks, and in absolutely no way resembling the cry of startled infants. Anyway-" he added quickly in response to Sirius' murderous look (What? The man was known for merciless tickle fights.) "The boy who had sneaked up on the two pranksters asked, 'What are you two up to?'

"One of them replied, 'Flipping sparrows, Moony! Don't do that! And obviously we're trying to get this pudding in the closet' The boy who had spoken, of course, was none other than-"

"Padfoot!" Harry chirped happily.

Sirius, in the meantime, had raised an eyebrow at 'flipping sparrows', taking Remus' half-smile and raised eyebrows to mean something along the lines of, 'Sirius, you twat, I can't exactly say 'Holy buggering shit' to a five year old.'

"In the meanwhile, Prongs had gotten over his bout of screaming, and had started attempting to shove the pudding in the closet, again in vain. 'Flying frogs,' he said, 'Why in bumblebee heaven isn't this working?'"

"Moony here rolled his eyes." Interrupted Sirius, again, "I believe his censored words were, 'you buggy twang, you forgot to cast the god dang shrinking charm'. And with a flick of his wand, all the pudding shrunk until it was the size of a thimble."

"Why didn't you take one pudding and just make it big?" asked Harry, his eyes widening.

"Well, said Remus, "When you engorge a food item, only the visual of the food increases, not the actual amount. So, say, if you engorged a pumpkin, the amount of skin and flesh would be the same as before, just spread thinner. You can, however, shrink food items, and enlarge them back to their original size later, and it will still be the same amount, just concentrated and diluted, depending on which spell you cast, engorging or shrinking."

Somewhere during the (repeated) lecture, Sirius's eyes had glazed over until he was only staring vaguely at Remus' lips. Harry, however, listened with rapt attention, his curiosity in theory Lily through and through. Speaking of Lily, she would probably permanently damage certain parts of them best left to the imagination if her beloved son wasn't asleep when she got back. Dragging his gaze firmly away from Remus' mouth, Sirius gave him a pointed look and asked, "Story?"

Remus looked confused for a moment before reaching the same conclusion as Sirius. He cleared his throat, "Ahem. Now back to the tale. Having hidden the pudding in the closet, Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs walked back to their dormitory.

"'So,' asked Moony, 'what was that about?'

"Padfoot winked, and Prongs said, 'Christmas prank, Moony. Christ, you're getting slow in your old age.'

"Since it was the middle of April, Moony looked at the two of them strangely.

"'Riiiiight. I'll tell Pete to be worried.'

"Padfoot looked confused, 'Why would you do that?'

"'Because I usually spend ages worrying about the pranks you plan by yourselves, and I've got a potions exam tomorrow, so I really can't be bothered. Pete will worry for the both of us.'"

"When will I meet Uncle Wormtail?" asked Harry, distracted.

Remus and Sirius shared a Look. They could hardly tell their godson that Peter Pettigrew was currently using his position as a very obvious spy in the ranks of the Death Eaters to distract the spotlight from the actual most important spy, Snivell- Snape.

Remus sighed, "In time, love. I'm sure he'd love to see you again."

In an effort to diffuse to conversation, Sirius cleared his throat and said, "Rems, are you really going to skip telling Harry the best part?"

Remus laughed as Harry turned an accusatory glare on him, "I wouldn't dare. The next day, after Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs had washed-or, at least, Wormtail and Moony washed- and put on their eyeliner- well, Padfoot put on his eyeliner (Don't look at me like that, Harry. It _was_ the 70s, after all)- the lot of them headed down to breakfast.

"The Great Hall was chaos, because instead of the usual spread of toast, jam, cold meat, and the like, every plate was filled with Christmas pudding of all different sorts. If you were allergic to nuts, you got one without. If you weren't a big fan of currant, yours had some sort of replacer in it. If you just didn't like Christmas pudding, well, you were out of luck. (Unless you were Moony. Then you got a chocolate Bundt cake disguised as Christmas pudding, because even Prongs and Padfoot aren't stupid enough to deny a werewolf chocolate.) Padfoot and Prongs had convinced the House Elves to help, apparently on the condition that there would be no evidence in the kitchens that they had helped, which was why they had been trying to put the lot of it in a broom cupboard the night before.

"Not only that, but in a flash of neon light, everyone was in their ugliest Christmas jumpers." Remus paused, "One Ravenclaw, Bertram Aubrey, I think, tried to complain to Dumbledore, who just smiled and told him to enjoy his pudding."

Sirius frowned contemplatively. "Didn't we swell his head for being such a telltale all the time?"

Remus shook his head, "Not we. There is no 'we' in that incident because you were idiotic enough to get yourself caught, even when I told you to use the invisibility cloak.

"Anyway, everyone in the Hall had a Christmas pudding. The Hall was also decked in boughs of holly, Slytherin green and Gryffindor red. Everyone was eating their pudding, there being nothing else, and nobody wanting to starve, when suddenly-"

"Evan Rosier of the Slytherin Quidditch team has his nose elongated, like a reindeer's, his nose turned red, and small antlers sticking out of his head, after that one muggle carol character, Rudolph. It was hilarious!"

Remus smiled at the nostalgic look on Sirius' face before asking, "Can I have the story back now?"

Sirius stuck out his tongue, "No. You told your half of the story, I'll tell mine."

Remus rolled his eyes before huffing out a very Harry-like 'fine.'

"So, like, everyone's staring at this Rosier bloke, wondering why he's part reindeer before looking back at us and wondering what we had planned next (because obviously it was us, who else could it possibly be?).

"All of a sudden, there are explosions of colour all over the room, like Rosier's, and in less than five minutes, everyone's in costumes that look like caroling characters, both muggle and Wizarding. There were fleets of Red-Nosed Reindeer- and yes, Prongs was a Rudolph- students with wings and beaks and paws like the hippogriffs in that one carol, angels from muggle carols, even a few Christmas trolls, like Snape. Even the professors were costumed to look like Grinches from that Muggle story that you like. Then, while everyone was still shocked silent, fireworks exploded, reading out 'Merry Christmas! And A Happy New April 24th! Xoxo, the Marauders.

"Then, Moony said something about having a proper 'Christmas' and said a spell to make it snow in the Great Hall. It was amazing; everyone started cheering and everything. And then, just to top it off, Dumbledore just stood up and declared there be no lessons for the day in honor of 'Christmas'. So we should've got off scot free, but McGonagall had other ideas."

"Which was not fair, by the by. Wormtail and I didn't even know of the prank until the night before. And Wormtail didn't even do anything. How were we to know what Restricted Section potions you drugged the puddings with, what charms you put on them? Well. I knew because I read, but how was Pete supposed to know?"

"Ah, don't be a downer! 'Tis Marauderly Spirit, Moony! Scrubbing pots every night for two months is far more fun with four people!"

"Tell that to all the suspicious lumps I had to scrape off of plates while you and James played Exploding Snap."

Harry blinked drowsily up at them, smiling. Abandoning the argument, Sirius bent to tuck him in more thoroughly, when-

Harry giggled, "Padfoot! Your hair is green!"

Sirius turned back to glare at Remus, who looked a bit too innocent. He launched himself at Remus, who was surprised and went down easily.

That was the end of the easy part.

Soon enough, they were wrestling on the ground, all thoughts of dignity or 'hey, I have a wand, I can do this without rolling about on the ground' forgotten as Harry cheered them on.

Eventually, Sirius managed to trap Remus in a headlock. Which really had not been the smartest move because Remus had taken up muggle martial arts for a few years in case he was stuck without a wand in a dangerous situation. Putting his hand under Sirius' nose, and one behind his knee, Remus picked him up and dropped him on the ground kicking and screaming, much to Harry's delight.

When Sirius said 'uncle', Remus smiled and let him up, moving to peck him on the cheek, because that pouty expression on his face looked so ridiculous.

Sirius, however, had different plans, and turned his head at the last minute so they ended up snogging instead. Not that Remus minded. Especially not with Sirius' arm snaking around his waist, and their lips glued together.

They ignored Harry's rather fond cry of disgust for a few moments longer, but then Remus had to yawn, and broke the kiss, while Sirius laughed at him. Remus laughed right back when a yawn the size of Yorkshire issued from him.

Harry's snickers and 'ewws' were ignored; he did the same to anyone who dare kiss in front of him, and together, they tucked him in-for the third time- and shut off his light. But not before Sirius waved his wand to make Remus as green-haired as he was, making quiet little laughs rise from the bed as they shut the door behind them.

\\_(ツ)_/

Lily and James came home that night to find an oddly seaweed-haired Remus and Sirius passed out on the couch, Remus leaning heavily on the armrest and Sirius draped over his side, using his shoulder as a pillow, their arms draped around each other and legs tangled together.

Lily smiled at them fondly as she and James crept up the stairs. She wasn't going to kick them out after taking care of her hyperactive five year old all evening while she and James enjoyed the first precious few hours of alone time they'd had in weeks. She and James peeked into Harry's room and saw him, curled up tight around his stuffed lion, Lopey, and snoring away peacefully.

She let out a sigh. "I thought Harry's hair would have been turned green too."

James scoffed, "They'd know better than to turn my son into a Slytherin."

Lily hit his arm, but she couldn't stop her smile as she said, "Don't be prejudiced."

James rubbed at where she punched him, but he was grinning too, "Who me? Never. I'm just glad they didn't do anything to Lopey. They know he's my favorite too."

Lily closed the door quietly, a small thud echoing down the hall. She walked back to where Sirius and Remus lay, and conjured a blanket for them, wrapping the two in it using her wand.

James walked up behind her and muttered, "Dorks. We could prank them. It's been ages. Draw something on their faces."

"I don't think so. They've taken care of Harry the whole afternoon, and you know how he can be. It's a miracle that the only thing that's changed is their hair color. "

She sighed and rested her head against James' chest as he laughed softly. It was hard to believe that she had trusted Sirius, of all people, with her child, but he and Remus had done a good job. After all, Harry was alive and the house wasn't burnt to a crisp.

All in all, a good night for the Marauders.


End file.
